London Chess Classic 2016 to Begin

The London Chess Classic 2016, begins today (Friday 9^th December), at the Olympia Conference Centre, London. The event, sees Wesley So (USA 2794), Levon Aronian (ARM 2785), Hikaru Nakamura (USA 2779), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA 2804), Fabiano Caruana (USA 2823), Viswanathan Anand (IND 2779), Veselin Topalov (BUL 2760), Anish Giri (NED 2771), Vladimir Kramnik (RUS 2809) and Mickey Adams (ENG 2748) competing.

Top seed is the USA’s Fabiano Caruana.

The event is a 10-player round robin, (so 9 rounds), played with the following schedule: Round 1, Dec 9^th; Round 2, Dec 10^th; Round 3, Dec 11^th; Round 4, Dec 12^th; Round 5, Dec 13^th; Round 6, Dec 15^th; Round 7, Dec 16^th; Round 8, Dec 17^th; Round 9 and play-offs if needed, Dec 18^th.

There is just one rest day, on Wednesday December 14^th.

The tournament will be played with the classical time control of 40 moves in 2 hours. The players will then have 1 hour for the remainder of the game, with a 30-second increment from move 41.

The total prize fund for the event is $300,000 (£238,048 €283,125), with $75,000 (£59,512 €70,781) going to the winner.

The London Chess Classic is also the fourth stage and concluding event of the Grand Chess Tour 2016. In addition to individual event prizes, winning the Grand Chess Tour brings a prize of $100,000 (£79,310 €94,482), with $50,000 (£39,655 €47,241) going to the runner-up.

After the first three stages, (Paris GCT (June 2016), ‘Your Next Move’ Leuven GCT (June 2016), Sinquefield Cup (August 2016)), the current standings are as follows:

1. Wesley So — 30pts
2. Magnus Carlsen — 23pts
3. Levon Aronian — 21.75pts
4. Hikaru Nakamura — 21.5pts
5. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave — 17.5pts
6. Fabiano Caruana — 16.75pts
7. Viswanathan Anand — 14.75pts
8. Veselin Topalov — 10.75pts
9. Anish Giri — 8.5pts
10. Vladimir Kramnik — 6.5pts
11. Ding Liren — 3pts
12. Peter Svidler — 2pts
13. Laurent Fressinet — 1pts

Of course, it is very notable that the London Chess Classic does not include Magnus Carlsen this year. Carlsen won the event last year and with it the Grand Chess Tour also, but having just completed the defence of his World Title in New York City, has decided to sit this one out.

Round 1, Friday 9^th December, 16:00 GMT (check your time here.)

• Levon Aronian v Michael Adams
• Hikaru Nakamura v Wesley So
• Maxime Vachier-Lagrave v Anish Giri
• Fabiano Caruana v Viswanathan Anand
• Vladimir Kramnik v Veselin Topalov